


can you feel me step right off of the edge?

by lostin_space



Category: Roswell New Mexico (TV 2019)
Genre: Alex Manes Deserves Nice Things, Canon Compliant, First Dates, Flirting, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-24
Updated: 2020-04-24
Packaged: 2021-03-01 21:35:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,579
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23813896
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lostin_space/pseuds/lostin_space
Summary: Alex watched Forrest walk off stage, unable to stop staring as he walked right to him.
Relationships: Forrest Long/Alex Manes
Comments: 13
Kudos: 64





	can you feel me step right off of the edge?

**Author's Note:**

> apologies for all the btvs references, couldn't help myself 
> 
> title: i was going to call you - lizard boy

Alex watched Forrest walk off stage, unable to stop staring as he walked right to him.

“So, what’d you think?” he asked, sitting at the table beside him with a smirk. Forrest’s eyes were on him and they had been since he saw him and Alex didn’t know how to deal with that. 

“It-It was amazing, holy shit,” Alex laughed, shaking his head as he tried to order his thoughts. His face broke out into a smile. 

“You think? Not too cringey? I know spoken word can be-”

“No,” Alex jumped in, shaking his head, “No, seriously. That was… Like, I got it completely. It was amazing.” He felt weird, rambling like that. He didn’t _do_ that. He was so, so shit at finding his words. But Forrest wasn’t.

“Thank you. That means a lot to me,” he said. Forrest bit down on his lip and stared at him for a moment. Alex didn’t know if he was supposed to speak next or not. He honestly should’ve prepared something more to say, but here he was. “Let me go get you that drink I promised. What do you like?” 

Alex didn’t mean to react shocked, but fuck him if anyone had ever asked him anything like that before. Anything that had to do with his interests or asking instead of assuming. But Forrest didn’t point it out, just smiled and leaned a bit forward as if maybe he just couldn’t hear over the soft muttering of other people.

“Um, just a beer.”

“What kind?”

“Uh,” Alex felt his face turn hot. “Whatever sounds good, I guess?”

“Got it,” he agreed, tapping his fingertips against the table before standing up, “Don’t go anywhere, yeah?”

“I’m not,” Alex promised, watching him walk to the bar.

Forrest walked there, eyes never wandering to any men or women that passed him. Alex couldn’t help himself as he bit down on his thumb and kept fucking staring. He leaned against the bar to catch the bartender’s attention. He ordered two beers and carried them back to Alex, handing him his drink with nimble fingers.

“Thanks.”

“No problem,” Forrest said, taking a sip. Alex mimicked him, eyes still finding it hard to break eye contact. “So, tell me about you.”

“Wait, why do I have to start?” Alex laughed. Forrest rolled his eyes.

“Because you already know more about me than I know about you, even up the score,” Forrest said. Alex huffed a laugh, breaking eye contact just long enough to look down. He didn’t actually know where to start. ‘I’m in the Air Force, I have one leg, and I have no idea how to have a relationship with another person’? Because that sure as hell wouldn’t sound good. “Oh, c’mon, just tell me anything.”

“I’m so bad at this,” Alex laughed, shaking his head, “I-I don’t really know how to do the whole first date questions thing.”

Forrest took another sip. “So this is a date?”

Alex felt his stomach drop and his eyes widen. Oh, god, did he fuck it up already? Did he fuck it up before it even started? Fuck, fuck, _fuck_.

“Hey, I’m messing with you,” Forrest laughed, leaning forward in a comforting little way, “I asked you out, remember?”

“Yeah, but I don’t wanna assume anything because then that makes me kind of a dick.”

“Okay, no assuming. I want this to be a date, do you?” Forrest said outright. Alex felt like his head was spinning.

“Yeah,” he breathed out. Forrest nodded. 

“Awesome. Then it’s a date,” Forrest clarified, giving a smile that felt like it was just for him. For the first time in a really long, butterflies erupted in Alex’s stomach. “So, I’ll ask questions because I did kinda put you on the spot. Okay, so I know you like Buffy. Angel, Riley, or Spike?”

Alex tried to focus on the questions instead of the feeling. “Oh, come on, unfair to lump Riley in with those two.” 

“Oh, why not? He was a good guy who treated her well, always did what he thought was best and cared about her feelings,” Forrest said. Alex scrunched up his nose, trying to tell him that maybe he was right but he didn’t hold a candle to the other two. “Okay, _fine_ , Angel or Spike?”

“Angel.”

“Why?”

“He’s the guy who is trying to fix all of his wrongs and is willing to sacrifice his own happiness for it,” Alex answered honestly. Forrest made a little face, half-judgy and half-playful.

“Okay, but _Spike_ is the guy with the real redemption arc,” Forrest pointed out, “You really think about it, Angel had to be forced into that. Spike chose his way through love, you know? Angel needed a soul to be kind, Spike was able to do it regardless, he just had to allow it.”

“You have a point,” Alex laughed, “Never thought of it like that.”

“Yeah, you just have to open your perspective.”

“Says the guy who spends his free time on Nazis.”

“Hey, it’s not my fault history is a lie,” Forrest said, voice teasing. Alex shook his head again. He wasn’t exactly _wrong. “_ Okay, next question. what’s something you’ve never told anyone?”

“Wow, you’re really just jumping in,” Alex laughed, taking another sip of his beer.

“What can I say? I’m bold.”

“Uh-huh,” Alex hummed, smiling a little helplessly, “Uh, let’s see, something I’ve never told anyone… Oh, okay. In 5th grade, this guy kept copying off my math tests so I purposefully did all the answers wrong, waited for him to turn it in, and then changed them.”

“Oh my god, what a dorky secret,” Forrest teased, but his shoulders were shaking with laughter at the idea. It made Alex smile wide and his chest felt a little tight. He felt happy.

“If mine is so dorky, you tell me something, Mr. Slam Poet,” Alex shot back. Forrest tilted his head, taking the name with another laugh and shaking his head.

“Okay, here’s something: the first time I went down on a guy, I threw up on him,” he said. Alex gasped involuntarily.

“You did not.”

“Oh, yeah, I really did,” Forrest said, wincing and shaking his head, “I proceeded to apologize profusely, clean it up, and then he blocked my number.”

“Oh no,” Alex said, folding his lips in as he tried not to laugh, “I cannot say that’s ever happened to me. Well, I’ve gagged a couple times, but nothing that bad.”

“Yeah, I’m one of a kind,” Forrest said pompously, waving his hand in the air before divulging into another round of laughter. It was quite possibly the cutest thing Alex had ever seen. “ _But_ I can promise that I’ve never done it since, I have gotten better.”

“I’ll believe it when I see it,” Alex said confidently, but instantly regretted it despite the shocked laughter coming from the other man, “Sorry.”

“Nah, nah, don’t be,” Forrest promised, shaking his head as he tried to swallow his laughter, “I deserve that.”

“I guess,” Alex chuckled, bringing the beer to his lips as he tried to hide his embarrassment.

“So, you’re absolutely sure you don’t wanna go up there?” Forrest asked, brushing past it like it wasn’t a big deal. Alex shook his head.

“Yeah, no, absolutely not,” he insisted.

“Okay,” Forrest agreed, leaning forward a bit more and resting his chin in his hands, “But let’s keep talking. I think I want to know what kind of rebel was created that one fateful day in 5th grade math.”

Alex stifled his laugh with the beer bottle, hoping to subdue those fucking butterflies that just kept fluttering. It didn’t help one bit. They kept coming, flying around more and more frantically as Forrest kept looking at him like _that._

 _“_ Why are you looking at me like that?” Alex asked without thinking. Forrest tilted his head, raising an eyebrow. But his eyes were still fond and his smile was still there. 

“Like what? I’m just listening,” he said. So that’s what that looked like.

“I’m not going to sleep with you, you know,” Alex stated firmly.

“Wasn’t expecting you too, it’s a first date and I’m a gentleman,” Forrest insisted. Alex raised an accusing eyebrow and Forrest just smiled even wider, shaking his head. “C’mon, give me a chance to woo you, Alex Manes.”

And wasn’t that a funny thing. Alex never told him his last name. And clearly that showed on his face because for the first time, Forrest blushed.

“I may have asked around about you,” he tacked on, “I was just curious, I’m sorry.”

Alex licked his lips, readjusting in his seat. Someone asked about him, tried to learn about him, knew about his family and still wanted to take him out. But then again Forrest must’ve understood that side of things too if the connotations his surname gave.

“In high school, I punched a guy in the face so hard I had to ice my hand,” Alex admitted. Forrest perked up at the fact he kept talking.

“Oh yeah?”

“At prom.”

“What a little badass.”

“Oh, that’s not even the start.”

They talked that night for a long time, getting wrapped up in stories about each other. That had a lot in common, similar interests in high school and beyond. Forrest listened and he was honest and it was overwhelming in one of the best ways.

Maybe, just maybe, Alex could understand why Riley could compete with Angel.

**Author's Note:**

> also on my tumblr: spaceskam


End file.
